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Collecting Antique Clocks Robert and John Crucefix of London, Huguenot clockmakers

A lantern clock which came to light recently
set me enquiring into a little-known clockmaker
named John Crucifex or Crucefix, for his name
seems to have been spelled in a variety of ways.
There was something a bit odd about John Crucefix,
who seems to have made clocks, according to
various estimates, as early as the 1680s, yet
not to have joined the Clockmakers Company till
1712. Not many London clockmakers could get
away with that, as the Company pressured all
those who sought to practice the craft till
they joined and paid their subscriptions.

Robert Crucefix, who I felt
must surely have been related, was also little
known, though one record said he worked in Sweetings
Alley, which I think must be Swithens Alley
in the Spitalfields district of London. When
I later discovered Robert's will, this
was confirmed, as he was then described as of
the parish of Christ Church Spitalfields. The
name Crucefix, however you spelled it, did not
strike me as very English. I guessed it was
a French name. I knew nothing about Spitalfields,
but when I looked it up I was amazed to find
that Spitalfields was a whole world of its own
where immigrants settled in vast numbers, most
particularly French ones. So gradually it all
began to make sense.

Spitalfields originated from
'hospital fields' of St. Austin. It
was settled by immigrant refugees from mainland
Europe. Protestant refugees from arrived in
Britain in considerable quantities after the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 by
Louis XIV. Some French nonconformists (Huguenots)
fled to England via Holland, some direct to
England, beginning as a trickle in the 1670s,
then as a flood in the years after 1685. It
is estimated that somewhere between 40,000 and
50,000 moved here. Many of these, from all levels
of society, settled in Spitalfields. Principally
they were silk weavers, but there were clockmakers
amongst their number. Those who needed it were
given financial assistance from the government
to get themselves established. Smaller groups
of Huguenots also settled in other towns in
England, principally southern seaports.

The following passage is from
my Gazetteer of about 1840:

'For
a considerable time (after 1685 that is) the
population of Spitalfields might be considered
as exclusively French. That language was universally
spoken, and, even within the memory of persons
now living (in the late 1830s), worship continued
to be performed in French in the chapels originally
erected by the pious refugees. The district,
though a suburb of London, might not improperly
have been called Petty France. French songs
were sung in the streets, there were French
coffee houses, and all social intercourse was
strongly marked by French manners.'

The use of the French language
died out in most places before the end of the
eighteenth century, though it was still used
by Huguenots in Bristol as late as 1812. By
1800 however most Huguenot churches, generally
called 'French' churches, had closed
and the population had been integrated into
Anglican parishes.

Their church records were
generally kept in French, and French first names
were often used as well as French surnames,
sometimes long after the family had become 'anglicised'.
Confusingly French surnames were sometimes 'translated'
into English, one example of which in 1716 was
one Rudold Le Blanc, who was written down as
Rudolph White. Even worse, any part of a double-barrelled
French name, which they so loved on account
of their hinting at an aristocratic ancestry,
might be selected at random as an English name,
so that one French minister in 1691 named Paul
Falantin Lariviere signed himself apparently
at random as Falantin or Riviere. One Huguenot
watchmaker named Philippe Girardel Constantine
or de Constantine, was known either as Girardel
or Constantine, or, when his will was proved
in 1731, as Girardel alias Constantine. Fortunately
the French name Crucefix left few options at
translation, apart from the spelling as -efix
or -ifex. I guess a crucifix was pretty much
the same thing in France as in England.

2.
Top view of the movement to show the verge
escapement, bell removed for photograph.
Click for closer view.

Oddly enough the spelling
of the name even by the family themselves seems
very inconsistent. In his will, Robert senior
spells his name Crucefix. On his clocks John
sometimes spells it as Crucefix too, but also
several times spells it as Crucifex. It seems
they were not especially fussy, and so probably
would not be offended if they knew that I have
spelled it Crucefix consistently just out of
tidiness.

There were many French churches
in London, and I searched the records of several
before I finally found that the Crucefix family
attended the French Church in Parliament Alley,
Artillery Ground, usually known as the Artillery.
Here were recorded the baptisms of the children
of Robert Crucefix and his wife Susanne (nee
Barbot or Barbault), who were: 1696 Suzanne,
1700 Pierre, 1702 Elizabeth, 1705 David. Also
baptised there were the children of John Crucefix
(Jean) in the records: 1699 Jean, 1702 Pierre,
1705 Marie, 1708 Paul. I could not trace the
marriage of either Robert or John, and they
may perhaps have married before coming to England.

Robert Crucefix joined the
Clockmakers' Company as a Brother in 1689
- a Brother was someone who trained elsewhere
than under a member of the Company. John did
not join till 1712. Yet both were probably working
there by the late 1680s. My guess is that Robert
and John were brothers, though I have found
nothing to prove that other than circumstantial
evidence. They might perhaps have been cousins,
but they must surely have been closely related
and have come here at the same period for the
same reasons - about, or shortly after, 1685?

When I found Robert's
will, dated 6th July 1734 and proved in April
1735, I was astonished at the amounts of money
he left. He was described as being a clockmaker
of the parish of Christ Church Spittlefield,
for that was the official parish even though
he may have belonged to the French church situated
within that parish. The will reveals he had
an older son named Robert, who had already had
most of his inheritance, but was topped up to
match that of his brothers at £300.00
each. The unmarried daughter, Elizabeth, received
£400 and the married daughter, Susan,
now wife of Lewis Roussel, only a nominal mention
of £10, explained by the testator's
specifying with a hint of bitterness 'she
having cost me a good deal more than that'!
Robert's eldest son, Robert Junior, also
became a clockmaker but did not join the Clockmakers
Company in 1745, a full ten years after his
father's death. That is also a bit odd.

Robert Crucefix junior, rather
than Robert senior, seems to be the one who
took an apprentice named Charles Coulson in
1733 when he was described as being of the parish
of St. Giles in the Fields. We know Robert senior
was still in Spitalfields in 1733 and died there
in 1735. From his estimated birth year we know
Robert junior must have been adult well before
1720, was working in 1733, but did not join
the Clockmakers' Company till 1745. If
he was apprenticed at all in the trade, there
is no record of it. If he was apprenticed to
his own father, then there was no need for an
official apprenticeship bond. It is as if he
was able to trade without joining the Company
as long as his father was a member, and it took
a further ten years after his father's
death before he became one. Not many clocks
seem to be known by Robert Crucefix, and all
of them apparently by Robert senior. There is
a record of a longcase clock and a bracket clock,
but I have not personally come across anything
by him.

John Crucefix was made free
in the Clockmakers Company in 1712, as a Brother,
implying he too learned his trade elsewhere
than in the Company. His two sons, christened
as Jean and Pierre, were apprenticed through
the Clockmakers' Company as plain John
and Peter - the Company founded almost a century
earlier specifically 'to keep out Frenchmen'
were not having any fancy Frenchified names.
John was apprenticed in 1714 to Philip Abbot,
Peter in 1716 to John Lewis. Their father John
was then said to be of the parish of St. Botolph
without Bishopsgate, which was the next parish
adjacent to Christ Church Spitalfields, where
Robert senior lived. Of John Crucefix's
work I know of ten or eleven clocks, most being
thirty-hour lantern clocks, one a thirty-hour
hanging wall clock, and one a Turkish Market
bracket clock, one described in Britten as a
'sheepshead' clock, by which he meant
a lantern clock with a wider chapter ring (like
the one pictured here), and one month duration
longcase.

His lantern clocks would generally
be expected to have wider chapter rings, by
virtue of his having been influenced by the
French style (which had wider rings) and by
the fact that wider chapter rings were normal
by about 1700, from which period some of his
clocks must date. The wider style of chapter
ring would project further than usual at each
side outside the upright pillars, as here. The
wide chapter ring also hangs down below the
bottom of the frame into the space between the
front 'feet', and also projects at the top into
the front fret, which is cut back to receive
it.

3.
The movement seen from the left hand side.
Note the fancily-filed hammer stop spring
incorporating a comic jaw and mouth. Click
for closer view.

If we judge by the apparent
date of his latest clock, John Crucefix must
have been working till about 1730. Oddly enough
some of his clocks clearly date well before
the 1712 date of his joining the Company. We
know he was working by 1699 and quite possibly
earlier, judging by the style of his clocks.
If he was the brother of Robert Crucefix
senior, then it looks as if he too got away
without joining for long enough, just as Robert
junior did. It may be pertinent that he joined
in 1712 in time enough to become an established
member in order to get his own sons apprenticed
through the Company in 1714 and 1716. We don't
know whether John lived in St. Botolph's
parish all along and simply used the Artillery
Ground church, as his brother Robert did, or
whether he later moved down to St. Botolph's
parish after his children were born.

Although we know that Robert
Crucefix junior, his brother, Peter Crucefix
(son of Robert senior), his brother, David Crucifex
(son of Robert senior), and Peter Crucifex and
John Crucifex, (sons of John senior) were all
in the clock and watch trade, we know of no
work by any of them!

There may be some significance
in the fact that Robert, the elder of the two
supposed brothers, was apparently the more prosperous
of the two. I get the impression he was more
of a well-to-do merchant. The few clocks known
by him are of a higher class than John's
far more numerous more relatively working class
lantern clocks. Robert went for the upper market,
John for the lesser. It is as if Robert senior's
membership of the Clockmakers' Company
covered his own activities and those of his
son, Robert junior, and brother John too. It
is highly possible that Robert was initially
the head of the family business, which included
younger brother John and, by about 1710, his
son Robert junior. It is odd the Company did
not enforce their membership, as they generally
did. It may be that the Spitalfields district
was on the outer fringes of the Company's
enforceable territory. It may also have been
that the Company attitude of that time towards
immigrants was more lenient because Parliamentary
toleration expected it and set example of it.

What became of John Crucefix
is not known. It may be that he died before
Robert, that is before 1735. It may just be
that John's side of the family were less
well-to-do, for I came across no wills by any
of them. Robert's widow, Susan, left a
will when she died in 1738, said to be of St.
Giles in the Fields, which presumably means
she was then living with her son, Robert junior.
Their other two sons, Peter and David both became
watchmakers and moved out to Wandsworth in Surrey
where David died in 1768 and Peter in 1768,
both of them leaving wills.

The lantern clock illustrated
here by John Crucefix is of the centre verge
pendulum type, that is with a pendulum situated
in the centre of the clock between the going
and striking trains. These clocks pose a bit
of a mystery. On the one hand they are the easiest
of all to identify, as, even if they have in
any way been altered later, the central space
makes clear that they began as verge pendulum
clocks. On the other hand nobody knows whether
the pendulum itself had a normal pear-shaped
bob, like other verge pendulum lantern clocks,
or had anchor-like flukes which projected each
side into 'wings', as this example
does. Certainly the side doors of such clocks
had a slot in them to allow the pendulum to
pass through - needed if the pendulum swing
was wider than the clock's width with the
doors closed. Some clocks are known with these
apparently original slotted doors and with a
normal pear-shaped pendulum bob. Others have
the anchor flukes which project into what we
usually call 'wings' or 'bats'
wings'. But whether any of these slotted
doors originally had the winged attachments
is a matter of dispute amongst experts, who
cannot agree. Some believe they did. Others
believe that all wings and fluked pendulums
on such clocks are later modifications based
on an example (with reproduction wings?) shown
in a book over a hundred years ago.

The reason for the central
positioning of the pendulum seems to have been
to allow more space for alarmwork at the back
of the clock, where the pendulum was normally
fitted but where the alarmwork had to be. The
competition for space by alarmwork and pendulum
was removed by positioning the pendulum well
away in the centre. Not every winged lantern
clock had alarmwork, but most did. Lantern clocks
with central verge pendulums must all date later
than 1660 (when the pendulum was first introduced)
and tend to end about 1700, when the lantern
clock was going out of fashion, in London that
is.

Footnote: Shortly after
completing this article I was contacted by a
descendant who confirmed certain details and
added:
Guillaume Crucefix and his wife Francoise, nee
Dyel, lived in Rue Notre Dame in Dieppe, France.
Their son, Pierre, married Judith Girardel,
also known as Constantin, and had three children,
Elizabeth, Robert and John, with whom they emigrated
to London in February 1686. Robert and John
were the two clockmakers.